engadget.com — The engorged battery photos you see above and in the gallery below were sent to us by a reader named Brian. He claims that he was watching a movie on his 17-inch MacBook Pro (core duo) when it suddenly shut off. This happened twice before, only this time with a notable difference: his battery was fit to burst.
Mar 21, 2007 View in Crawl 4
Closed AccountMar 21, 2007
This happened to me. I called up apple support the day after I noticed it and at first when they heard that I had a 17" the guy on the phone was kind of skeptical and put me on hold so he could do some "research". When he came back on the line he sounded much more tense than when I'd left him and emphatically told me not to put the battery back in the computer. They shipped me out a new battery overnight and I sent the defective one back without any problems at all.Great customer service.
Closed AccountMar 21, 2007
bbrosmer: "it seems like they just expand and are no real threat."engadget: "As we have all learned, swelling is typically the final stage before explosion."Dunno, might want to reconsider the no real threat assumption. If it was me I'd get an RMA after backing up my data.
skweadMar 21, 2007
@MrFoofYou're right, but you're talking about Li-Ion not Lithium-Polymer batteries that MB and MB Pros are using:"There are many advantages of this design over the classic lithium ion design, including the fact that the solid polymer electrolyte is not flammable (unlike the organic solvent that the Li-Ion cell uses)."
mullingMar 21, 2007
The first-gen Macbook Pros are garbage. I have one and I've had:- Defective inverter which causes nails-on-chalkboard noise when running on battery power- *Two* bulging, dead batteries- Failed power supplyApple has joined Sony on my list of companies I will never, ever buy from again. I feel like an idiot for recommending them to my friends now.
ihatepantsMar 21, 2007
Happened to me. Just got my replacement in last week. btw- there appears to be a lot of it happening to 17" MBPs, because they had to backorder my battery, took an extra week.All in all, I still love my MBP, but damn, I wish they could have gotten me a battery a lot quicker.
firanideMar 21, 2007
I just got my MBP 17" CD back from Apple on Friday, after I had a bulging battery problem too ( <a class="user" href="http://viramoth.com/hosted/mbpbattery">http://viramoth.com/hosted/mbpbattery</a> ). They had to replace my screen too, because when the battery started swelling, it somehow fried the screen too.Now this new battery is swelling too (although it's only a couple millimetres at the moment). I'm not terribly happy, as this is my only machine, and I need a battery so I can take it to school.
lounger540Mar 22, 2007
My 17" started just shutting off at 40% battery and would only charge to about 98% and then would flicker between charging and not charging every 15 seconds. I did a full discharge and left it out for half a day and it seems to be working fine again. I thought I did notice a slight bevel in the aluminum of the battery casing but thought it could just be from the soft adhesive too. Hopefully mine doesn't decide to blow in 2 months when my warranty is up.
royal0rleansMar 22, 2007
My macbooks battery is swelling like crazy. not cool.im high
camperbobMar 22, 2007
"Posting a potentially explosive device sounds a bit dangerous and illegal."Yeah, no kidding. I don't know why you were dugg down, but if I have reason to believe that a lithium battery is about to do the China Syndrome thing, I'm not going to ship it back by air. I have excellent karma on Slashdot and all that, but not enough to cover causing a plane crash.
mullingMar 26, 2007
Wow, I get dugg down for sharing a firsthand account of my bad experiences? Was it because people think I'm lying, or because they don't like to hear the truth? Trust me, I'm not the only one having major problems with my MBP. I'm counting my blessings that the hard drive hasn't failed, which apparently is happening to other MBP owners.I'm hoping to sell my LemonBook Pro now that it's out of warranty. Any of you fanboys want to pick up my awesome machine? I'll give you a great deal.